'Not yet, Dupree.'
'You know Coretta, right?'
I noticed her there behind Dupree; he had her in tow like a child's toy wagon.
'Hi, Easy,' she said in a soft voice.
'Hey, Coretta, how are ya?'
'Fine,' she said quietly. She spoke so softly that I was surprised I understood her over the music and the noise. Maybe I really didn't hear her at all but just understood what she meant by the way she looked at me and the way she smiled.
Dupree and Coretta were as different as any two people could be. He was muscular and had an inch or two on me, maybe six-two, and he was loud and friendly as a big dog. Dupree was a smart man as far as books and numbers went but he was always broke because he'd squander his money on liquor and women, and if there was any left over you could talk him out of it with any old hard-luck story.
But Coretta was something else altogether. She was short and round with cherry-brown skin and big freckles. She always wore dresses that accented her bosom. Coretta was sloe-eyed. Her gaze moved from one part of the room to another almost aimlessly, but you still had the feeling that she was watching you. She was a vain man's dream.
'Miss ya down at the plant, Ease,' Dupree said. 'Yeah, it just ain't the same wit'out you down there t'keep me straight. Them other niggahs just cain't keep up.'
'I guess you have to do without me from now on, Dupree.'
'Uh-uh, no. I cain't live with that. Benny wants you back, Easy. He's sorry he let you go.'
'First I heard of it.'
'You know them I-talians, Ease, they cain't say they sorry 'cause it's a shame to'em. But he wants you back though, I know that.'
'Could we sit down with you and Odell, Easy?' Coretta said sweetly.
'Sure, sure. Get her a chair, Dupree. Com'on pull up here between us, Coretta.'
I called the bartender to send over a quart of bourbon and a pail of chipped ice.
'So he wants me back, huh?' I asked Dupree once we all had a glass.
'Yeah! He told me this very day that if you walked in that door he'd take you back in a minute.'
'First he want me to kiss his be-hind,' I said. I noticed that Coretta's glass was already empty. 'You want me to freshen that, Coretta?'
'Maybe I'll have another lil taste, if you wanna pour.' I could feel her smile all the way down my spine.
Dupree said, 'Shoot, Easy, I told him that you was sorry 'bout what happened an' he's willin' t'let it pass.'
'I'm a sorry man alright. Any man without his paycheck is sorry.'
Dupree's laugh was so loud that he almost knocked poor Odell over with the volume. 'Well see, there you go!' Dupree bellowed. 'You come on down on Friday an' we got yo' job back for sure.'
I asked them about the girl too, but it was no use.
At midnight, exactly, Odell stood up to leave. He said goodnight to Dupree and me, then he kissed Coretta's hand. She even kindled a fire under that quiet little man.
Then Dupree and I settled in to tell lies about the war. Coretta laughed and put away whiskey. Lips and his trio played on. People came in and out of the bar all night but I had given up on Miss Daphne Monet for the evening. I figured that if I got my job back at the plant I could return Mr. Albright's money. Anyway, the whiskey made me lazy—all I wanted to do was laugh.
Dupree passed out before we finished the second quart; that was about 3 a.m.
Coretta twisted up her nose at the back of his head and said, 'He use' to play till the cock crowed, but that ole cock don't crow nearly so much no mo'.'
6
'They done throwed him outta his place cuz he missed the rent,' Coretta said.
We were dragging Dupree from the car to her door; his feet trailed two deep furrows in the landlord's lawn.
She went on to say, 'First-class machinist at almost five dollars a hour but he cain't even pay his bills.'
I couldn't help thinking that she wouldn't have been so put out if Dupree held his liquor a little better.
'Throw'im in there on the bed, Easy,' she said after we got him through the front door.
Dupree was a big man and he was lucky that I could pile him in the bed at all. By the time I was through pulling and pushing his dead weight I was exhausted. I stumbled from Coretta's tiny bedroom to her even smaller living room.
She poured me a little nightcap and we sat on her sofa. We sat close to each other because her room wasn't much larger than a broom closet. And if I said something halfway funny she'd laugh and rock until she bent down to clutch my knee for a moment and then she'd look up to shine her hazel eyes on me. We spoke softly and Dupree's deep snoring drowned out a good half of whatever we said. Every time Coretta had something to say she whispered it in a confidential way and shifted a little closer to me, to make sure I heard her.
When we were so close that we were passing the same breath back and forth between us, I said, 'I better be
